Because it helps you locate your inner compass — and learn to navigate from there.

The Enlightenment Exercise and contemplative enquiry are not techniques for self-improvement. They are practices of inner orientation.

Loneliness has reached epidemic proportions. It’s been equated to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. But it’s not only about social isolation. It’s also the sense that we have lost contact with ourselves.

It teaches you how to align with your truth. Even when the world pulls you off course.

In a time of constant distraction and global uncertainty, this practice helps you stop reaching for escape and begin relating to what is. You’ll learn how to meet the present moment with acceptance, not resistance — and to do so within a supportive community.

Not to control life, but to navigate it.

We offer a radically different approach to wellness. We are part of a global network of Zen practitioners working in the tradition of Charles Berner. Roam Within offers a grounded introduction to the Enlightenment Exercise. Should the method resonate, we’ll support you in preparing for your first Enlightenment Intensive.

A dyad is shorthand for the Enlightenment Exercise, a contemplative practice done in pairs. It is a form of shared enquiry — simple in structure, profound in effect.

You and your partner will sit facing each other. One of you gives the instruction:

“Tell me how you are.”

You take turns responding, five minutes each, across four rounds. One speaks. One listens — fully, silently, without nodding, interrupting, or evaluating.

As the speaker, you let the instruction land, turn inward, and communicate what arises. As the listener, you offer your presence — no fixing, no feedback, just contact and acceptance, with warmth and respect.

A gong signals the changeover. The listener says, “Thank you,” and the roles reverse. After four rounds, the practice closes with both partners saying “Thank you.”

No. The first workshop - Charting Your Course - is for all skill and experience levels. If you have practised mindfulness or mantra based meditation, this can be helpful as you may already have some of the basic skills. However, applying these skills to everyday concerns is where we depart from what is traditionally viewed as meditation.

Absolutely. Roam Within is entirely secular.

There is no doctrine to follow and no belief system to adopt. The only material to study is yourself.

This work is about learning how to attend to your inner world — with a gentle curiosity. Book recommendations range from philosophy and psychology to secular wisdom and lived experience, so you can follow the threads that speak to you.

You’re not asked to believe anything.
You’re invited to open to the reality of who you are.

Roam Within’s approach is designed by Dr Tina Basi and is based on her research of the wellness sector and secular spirituality at the University of Cambridge. She is trained in a variety of Indian, Buddhist, Zen, and secular approaches to meditation, including the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) programmes.

Charting Your Course is evolved from the Enlightenment Intensive, created by Charles Berner.